Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Ok, thanks Gary, I wake up.


For the benefit of members reading at this thread, let’s recap a bit (and please correct me if I am wrong).

We have three different main “parts” for this forum:
• The Web site itself and its multiple pages, such as the structured Documentation library, which is hosted on a web hosting service called “Weebly”.
• The documents themselves (Word, Excel, PDF, JPG scans, etc) which are stored somewhere (I suppose on the Weebly server too).  We have access to these documents from the Web site pages.
• The discussion part called “Forum”, now using Nabble platform and that will probably move to InVision’s one.

In order to “mix” the documentation and the discussions sides together, the discussions one (the Forum) is embedded in the Web site.
So we access to it from a Web page, the same way we access to the reference documents.

All in all, we just need to understand that the Library and its documents will not move and will stay as they are now.  Exactly the same.

Only the Nabble forum (embedded in the Web site) would be replaced by a new one (probably InVision).

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THAT BEING SAID:
Do I understand that the “to be or not to be” question is:
1- Can we move all members past conversations and exchanges (threads, topics) to InVision without losing anything?
2- Can we keep it under a “forum” form?

IMHO, its a must.  The amount of information that has grown here represents a huge part of this treasure, as important as the Library documentation is.

The “past” Forum should stay as a Forum, not as a supplemental document of the Library that we (maybe?) could easily search into.
If technically possible, moving the Forum and keeping it searchable, at least the same as Nabble is now, is a must.

Personally, I think that we attract new members because anybody can navigate in the forum, read at the conversations, grab information, advices and tricks here and there and, finally, decides to jump on the train.
Even with a tremendous Library, an empty brand new Forum won’t be as attractive as a dynamic full one is.

My first experience here was the Forum side, I searched there before I discovered the Library.  People become members because of the Forum side.

We’re in a rock show.  We can’t simply move to another performance hall and start over a new concert.
The band has to transfer too and keep playing the tune.

Well said, Jeff.  You are right about the three parts, the only change I'd make is that the documents, which are Word, Excel, & PDF, are stored on my Microsoft OneDrive, not Weebly.

And you are right that an empty forum won't attract many people.  So we really DO need to migrate the old to the new.  I have another query in to InVision's sales team to see what more info I can get on that and will report back what I learn.  My questions to them so far are:

Usernames: Does that bring over usernames or do people have to start all over again?

Forums & Sub-forums: Does it bring over the layout we have on the old forum & sub-forums?

Cleanup: What cleanup is usually needed?

Estimate: How do we get a better estimate?

Due Diligence: Are there people to have a conversation with who've done this?

So if you folks have questions for them please let me know soonest.

Gary Lewis wrote

Usernames: Does that bring over usernames or do people have to start all over again?

Username AND password are the minimum.
I would be very surprised that forum conversations can be moved without its members database.
If possible, signature, avatar, but not a must, each member can go back and edit his/her personal information.

The passwords are encrypted on Nabble and InVision may not be able to retrieve them.  So my guess is that the user name will come over but when you try to log on the first time you'll have to reset your password.